Philosophy
Tufts - Summer Courses Open to High School Students - Introduction to Philosophy
The major types of philosophical thought and the central problems of philosophy are presented through study of some classic texts of the great philosophers. Offered each term. Open to high school students, who will be prompted to submit an additional application after enrollment including: a high school transcript, letter of recommendation, parental permission, and other required consent forms.
Brown Pre-College Programs: Philosophy Courses
Happiness is often represented as the most important thing in life. But what is happiness? How is it achieved? And is it all that important? Based on a popular Brown University course, this course explores these fundamental questions about happiness. Students will be invited to reflect on their own views of happiness and its importance in their lives by considering insights and findings from the two disciplines that have studied it most extensively, philosophy and psychology.
What kind of thing am I? Am I really awake as I write this, or am I dreaming? Do I really have hands, or a body, or am I merely a brain in a vat? Questions such as these motivate the philosophical tradition known as skepticism. In this course, we will think critically about the political, rather than merely philosophical, origins of these questions. We will consider whether skepticism about the nature of (human) being originates specifically in the context of slavery and its afterlives.
Though these two statements appear to be saying somewhat different things, in fact, they are logically equivalent: Either they're both true, or else they're both false. We can't make exactly one of them true. And this is a fact about logic. Now let's see an example of a paradox: At a desert oasis, A and B both separately undertake plots to try to kill C. A poisons his canteen, and later B punches a hole in it. C dies of thirst. Who killed him? At the trial, A argues that she can't possibly be the killer, for C never drank the poison. B argues that it couldn't have been him either, for B only deprived C of poisoned water. Both of their arguments seem pretty good, but C was surely killed, and someone should be held accountable. But, whom? The above story is just a simple example, but it illustrates nicely that even very innocent-seeming propositions can sometimes lead us into trouble. Part of this course will be an opportunity to investigate some of the most mind-bending and perplexing paradoxes that have ever been discovered, and we will try our hardest to solve them together.
The logic part of the course will be similar to an accelerated math class. We will cover new material every day, and there will be problem sets every night. In terms of content, we will cover much of the same material that a college-level introduction to logic course would cover. We will start by formally defining the core concepts (propositions, truth/falsity) as well as the logical operators (conjunction, disjunction, negation, the conditional). We will use truth tables to examine how these operators affect the truth of sentences that contain them. We will work our way toward definitions of satisfiability, implication, and validity. In the second half of the course, we will introduce predicates and quantifiers into our system in order to study first-order logic in all of its depth and rigor.
Harvard Pre-College Courses
Who we are depends on the ethical choices we make. What makes our lives good, noble, and meaningful? How can we improve our own lives and what do we owe to friends, family, or strangers? How can we address prevailing social and economic injustices, and how should we navigate moral issues about which people deeply disagree? This course gives students the tools to think deeply about these problems and articulate their own ethical views with precision and confidence. We examine a range of philosophical frameworks such as utilitarianism, deontology, contractualism, virtue ethics, and various philosophical theories of well-being. We then apply those theories to a variety of real-world topics based partly on students' own interests. In previous years these have ranged from the ethics of human life extension, genetic modification, and abortion, to questions about animal rights, freedom of speech, and the dangers of artificial intelligence. Along the way, we learn how to debate these controversial issues clearly, convincingly, and respectfully.
Many important political and social philosophical issues arise in connection with how we address legal questions, and philosophical issues also arise regarding the nature of law and legal reasoning. This course introduces students to a number of these issues and encourages independent critical thinking about them. Included among the questions to be explored are: what is the relationship between law and morality? Is there ultimately a substantial difference between legal reasoning and what seems to be more open-ended reasoning about policies or justice? What justifies society in criminalizing various acts and administering criminal punishment? Under what circumstances (if any) would the law be justified in permitting some persons to be treated differently than others on the basis of gender or sexual preference?
Happiness and the Meaning of Life
What makes for a good life? Can we make ourselves happier long term, and if so, how? Are a happy life and a meaningful life the same thing, or can they diverge? How have these concepts been understood by philosophers and what does modern psychology say about all this? This course examines these questions and is aimed at helping students develop their own views in a more considered, well-informed way. We examine happiness and the meaning of life from the perspective of many different philosophical traditions, both ancient and modern, such as Buddhism, Stoicism, Hedonism, Epicureanism, Daoism, Sufism, Existentialism, and modern psychology. Along the way, students develop their abilities to think philosophically about questions of fundamental importance to their own lives and to formulate their own views clearly and convincingly, both in conversation and writing.
Following the murder of George Floyd in the summer of 2020, the country experienced a reckoning. We collectively asked how do we become anti-racist—in our personal lives, in our workplaces, in our politics? How should we transform, or perhaps abolish, our political institutions that have historically served racist ends? In this course, we explore these questions from one level back and at a higher level of abstraction. This mode of inquiry is facilitated through engagement with works from philosophy, law, sociology, and history. We ask questions such as: what is racism, and why (and when) is it morally wrong? Do citizens have a duty to obey the law in a racially unjust society? Is it morally permissible for law enforcement to engage in racial profiling? Is mass incarceration best understood as caused by racist motivations? Are prisons inherently racist institutions? Students learn and develop their critical-thinking skills to analyze complex problems with clarity and nuance. They are asked to defend their own views in a way that anticipates and responds to those who might disagree with them. This course should be of interest to those looking to deepen their theoretical understanding of racism and its implications for our shared political life.
This course introduces students to philosophy and philosophical reasoning by way of engaging with contemporary questions surrounding sports. We discuss topics such as: should college athletes be paid? What, if anything, is wrong with the use of performance-enhancing drugs? What is cheating and what is sportsmanship? What does gender equity and sports look like? What is the role of sports in a well-functioning society? We engage with these questions with a close study of both popular media and philosophical writing on the topic.